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GUEST: Ahilan Arulantham, Staff attorney at ACLU of Southern California, Bushra Khan, with the Arizona Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations

Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight last week in Minnesota for what they said was nothing more than trying to say evening prayers. The scholars were attempting to fly to Phoenix where most of them are affiliated with a major mosque. They had been attending a three-day meeting of the North American Imams Federation in the Minneapolis area focused on building bridges between Muslims and American society. A spokesperson for the Airports Commission in Minneapolis said that the men had been praying at the gate area and that their actions were “arousing some concerns” among both passengers and crew. He also said some witnesses reported the men were making anti-American statements involving the Iraq war, asked to change seats once inside the cabin, that one requested an extender to make his seat belt larger even though he did not appear to need it and that in general “there was some peculiar behavior.” The Muslim scholars were eventually taken off the flight in handcuffs. Abu Hannoud, the civil rights director for the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the arrests saying the men were “humiliated” and that “their humiliation is really a humiliation for the entire Muslim community” and further proof that Islam phobia is a growing problem in the United States.